(Clearwisdom.net) I'm a salesperson of multiple products, including fabrics. When I first began selling fabrics, I was not familiar with the jargon. For example, wholesale fabric is measured in "yards," which is about 0.9 to 0.98 meters. In retail, the fabric is sold in meters so as to profit from a different pricing model. Some fabric stores use tampered-with tape measures that are less than a meter in length. Some keep the remnants when sewing a product. Then, they either sell that cloth or make various products with it for sale.
Teacher said in Zhuan Falun,
"There was a saying in the past, "Nine out of ten merchants are crooks." That's what ordinary people say. But I'd say it's a problem of integrity. If the people have integrity, and people do business fairly, the more effort you put in, the more money you should make. You get that only because you put in effort in this ordinary world--no loss, no gain--it's gained through effort."
Once I had a customer who purchased fabrics and asked me to make a duvet, bed sheets and pillow cases. As there were some remaining scraps, I was thinking, "What should I do with these scraps? The customer does not know how to sew and will throw the scraps away." Therefore, I made some small pads out of the remnants. When the customer came back to pick up the product, she said, "I did not order these. What did you add those pieces for?" I told her, "These are your remnants and you paid for them." She understood and smiled at me awkwardly, "Sorry. I misunderstood."
A fellow salesperson who had overheard the discussion said, "Nowadays it is hard to be a good person." The customer appeared to be deeply embarrassed. I said to my fellow salesperson, "Genuine and sincere interaction is what we need in dealing with people. We need to have compassion and always put others first. As business owners, we also need to be tolerant and willing to concede or compromise."
When business was slow, we chatted with each other. I spoke of the suspicious aspects concerning the staged Tiananmen Square self-immolation and hoped that they would understand my intent. I asked, "Have you ever seen the things that happened in those fabricated broadcasts occur in our area? Every time I go to Beijing to buy wholesale products I visit Tiananmen Square. I have never seen a police officer carrying a fire extinguisher, so how did the police respond within seconds with fire-extinguishers during the self-immolation incident? The gasoline bottle shown in the footage didn't ignite and the eyebrows and hair of the person were not burned. That so-called news story was full of flaws." After listening to me, they all quit the Chinese Communist Party and its associated leagues. When they see people discarding materials about Falun Gong, they pick them up and give them to me.
I often try to help them remember to be kind to others. I told them, "It is a long lost virtue that people should not pick up and keep things lost by others. Our people have lost their traditional values. Keeping other people's property is not an honest deed and is no different from stealing. If we keep the leftover scraps from the fabric we sell, how are we different from dishonest people? Today you take others' property, tomorrow others will take yours. It is a vicious cycle. We are all victims." All those around me agreed with my view and began returning scrap fabrics to their customers. They would say, "This way we don't have a guilty conscience."
Nowadays, the Chinese economy is sluggish. However, these people's businesses are still prospering. It is because they know the truth of Falun Gong and they know the secret to a prosperous business, namely integrity and fairness.
May 10, 2010
Category: Improving Oneself
